It's on. Professor Glenn Melancon is trailing corrupt GOP incumbent Rep. Ralph Hall by a 48-41 spread. This district went 70% for Bush in 2004. This is nothing short of amazing, people. This is a huge race, not so much as far as who controls the next Congress goes, and not so much for long term Democratic majorities either. But for the sake of holding corrupt politicians accountable for their bad acts, we the people - regardless of political or ideological stripe - need to show these politicians that they're not immune to public scrutiny. You can't hide behind the elephant (or the donkey) and think you can just do as you goddamn please.
For those of you who are late to the party, let me get you up to speed.
From my previous diary...
Josh Marshall may well be the hardest working man in the blogosphere. He started up a muckraking site which specializes in exposing government corruption one year ago. I remember when it launched, I was in Iraq at the time, and I thought... why the hell hasn't someone done this before? Well, this is what Josh has worked so hard for. To expose a guy like Ralph Hall for the worthless piece of shit he is.
A Texas congressman is denying charges he slandered a foreign sex slave at the behest of Jack Abramoff. But documents obtained by TPMmuckraker contradict the Republican's claims.
This is really quite simple. Ralph Hall is a despicable person. I'll just let the good folks at TPMmuckraker do the talking.
In November of 1997, Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX) publicly questioned the credibility of a teenage girl's claims that she'd been the victim of the sex trade in the Northern Mariana Islands. The statement, which Rep. Hall entered into the Congressional Record, was prepared by Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist for the islands.
"[S]he wanted to do nude dancing," Hall's statement said of the fifteen-year-old girl. She had earlier told federal investigators that she'd been forced to work for a local nightclub in a nightly live sex show. You can read the entirety of Hall's statement here.
Glenn's campaign has been distributing this flyer to voters in the 4th district. It's similar to the one which Georgia Republicans used to rid themselves of Ralph Reed (another Republican involved in the Northern Marianas Island scandal) in that State's GOP Gubernatorial Primary. And good on them for doing so. It's not often you can say this these days, but nice job Republicans, Georgia Republicans anyway. It's refreshing to know they're not all completely batshit crazy insane. Maybe there's still hope for this country, if our fellow Americans in the opposition party can clean up their side of the house. But we all know the power of incumbency, and here's where we can help out our Republican friends by working to elect Glenn Melancon November 7.
And it can happen. From TPM Muckraker today.
Few observers would ever have dreamed that GOP Rep. Ralph Hall's Texas seat is anything but completely safe. He's occupied it for more than a quarter-century. CQ Politics rates it "Safe Republican." And the district, which is around 100 miles from Hall's friend President Bush's Crawford ranch, is deep red: Seventy percent of its voters went for Bush in 2004. But now a new poll obtained by Election Central which was commissioned by Hall's Dem foe, history professor Glenn Melancon, suggests that Hall may be vulnerable after all. The poll finds that among likely voters Hall leads Melancon by seven points, 48%-41%.
I don't want to be a blockquote whore, but there's some really juicy stuff here for political junkie types.
The Melancon campaign also points to another number in the poll they hope bodes well for them: Only two years ago, Hall pulled 68% of the vote, which means that if today's poll is accurate, Hall's registered a drop of 20%. "That's huge," Melancon campaign manager David Marlett tells Election Central.
20 points? That's quite a dropoff, why the low numbers?
Hall's committed a few unsightly gaffes of late. He recently stumbled badly in efforts to explain away his ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Meanwhile, Melancon has been blasting Hall for a statement he placed in the Congressional Record in 1997, when he slandered a teen sex slave.
Naturally you should read all of the linked TPM articles, those guys just don't get enough respect for the good work they do.
Now don't get mad at me here, but I've gotta inject a little realism into the discusion here. The 4th Congressional District of the State of Texas was meant to be represented by a Republican. If God intended this district to be represented by a Democrat, he'd have given it liberals. The fact is, Rockwall County is as conservative as Paris is gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) and if Melancon wins in November, it's likely he'll lose in 2008 to whoever challenges him on the GOP ticket. Wave elections are like that, they tend to produce alot of one-term "accidental incumbents". Realistically, this is a Republican district full of conservatives. They're going to want to be represented by one of their own, eventually. But this race is big in terms of accountability. Ralph Hall is a scumbag. He deserves to be booted from office. It he is later replaced by an honest conservative, fine. I'll settle for a conservative who doesn't apologize for and coverup systemic child rape. But Ralph Hall has got to go. Not for the sake of liberal politics or the Democratic Party. Just for the sake of basic human decency.
But scoring a win for decency in our political process won't come easily. The TPM Muckraker post reports that Glenn is just about broke and doesn't have enough money to get on the airwaves. What a difference some of that John Kerry or Hillary Clinton money could make for Glenn, huh. For a complete rundown on Ralph Hall's corrupt behavior go to the Ralph Hall of Shame. To help out a good and decent man trying to restore integrity to the US Congress, you can donate to Glenn Melancon here.
P.S. Psst... hey Kos, I know how much you love it when people post diaries nagging you to blog races in their neck of the woods, so what do you say? Give Glenn some bloglove!